Meeting Abstract

57.1  Tuesday, Jan. 6  Determining Phylogenetic Relationships of microhylid frogs using Mitochondrial and Nuclear Gene Sequences RIVERA, J.A.*; BUTLER, M.; University of Hawaii, Manoa; University of Hawaii, Manoa julio.rivera85@gmail.com

Microhylidae represents an ancient group of Anuras that was thought to have diverged from its Indo-Asian relatives some 64-84 mya (Van der Meijden et al., 2007). The family contains a total of 20 genera and 215 species which are present in Papua New Guinea and its satellite islands. Microhylids show incredible adaptation to a variety of environments including fossorial, scansorial, and arboreal settings that can be seen across the genera. The niche filling seen leads to homoplasy not only in microhylids, but other anurans as well indicating that a morphological phylogeny may not be the best method to indicate relatedness (Bossuy and Milimkovitch 2000). Kohler and Gunther (2007) were able to construct a microhylid phylogeny using 12S and 16S genes from the mtDNA, but were only able to provide resolution for shallow and not deep branching. In order to have a more resolved phylogeny a broader set of genes should be sequenced including mtDNA and nuclear genes. This may help resolve deep branching and provide a strongly supported phylogeny for the large family of microhylids.